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So I'm trying to merge all of my DLL files into my exe if it's possible so I can run the exe without needing the DLL files in the same directory I tried looking around for other people asking the same question but didn't really find anything helpful or anything I could personally follow.

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Thanks in advance for the help

Max
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    When you publish your project, select the Deployment mode as "Self-contained" under Profile settings, and under the File Publish options, select "Produce single file". This will generate a single working .exe file for your project (along with a .pdb file) – Yash Gupta Jun 12 '21 at 14:20
  • Do you ask how to manage the GAC? To embed DLLs in the EXE? To use a shared folder? Or to run without any DLLs(?)? Otherwise what? –  Jun 12 '21 at 14:40
  • Yes, that, is possible: see for example https://stackoverflow.com/questions/189549/embedding-dlls-in-a-compiled-executable and search the web for "*c# embed dll in executable*". –  Jun 12 '21 at 14:50
  • @Max - click on "Show all", and then you'll find the Deployment mode setting. Select "Self contained" Deployment mode. Then, select your specific Target Runtime. Once you select your Target Runtime, you'll see additional "File Publish options". In there, check the "Produce Single file" checkbox. – Yash Gupta Jun 12 '21 at 14:56

2 Answers2

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Option 1: .NET Core >3.x, .NET 5

From Single-file deployment you can edit your project file to contain the following

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net5.0</TargetFramework>
    <PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile>
    <SelfContained>true</SelfContained>
    <RuntimeIdentifier>win-x64</RuntimeIdentifier>
    <PublishTrimmed>true</PublishTrimmed>
    <PublishReadyToRun>true</PublishReadyToRun>
  </PropertyGroup>

</Project>

Which corresponds to running the CLI tool: dotnet publish -r win-x64 -p:PublishSingleFile=true --self-contained true

Option 2: .NET Framework

Before the single-file deployment was available (in .NET Framework), I personally used Fody Costura. Fody is an assembly weaver which, after installing, puts some commands into the MSBuild configuration of your project that enable you to do many things. One add-in is Costura, it weaves your dependencies into a single assembly.

Sorashi
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1

The best solution in this case is probably Fody as mentioned by Sorashi, but if you don't want to use it Visual Studio has another trick up its sleeve; the poorly-documented IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract property (in addition to everything from Option 1 in Sorashi's Answer).

This allows you to include any dll dependencies from other projects in the same solution, as well as any external DLLs.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <!-- ...other properties... -->
    <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>
  </PropertyGroup>

</Project>

This is an easy way to produce a single executable for a multi-project solution; but it isn't suitable for CLI applications so keep that in mind.

Note that if you aren't using the dotnet CLI tool, you'll have to create a publish profile to use this.

  1. R-Click on the project that produces the exe, and select the Publish... option.
  2. When prompted to choose a 'target', choose Folder.
    On the next page you'll be prompted for a filepath; you can just use publish if you don't want to dig through the bin directory.
  3. Now that you have a publish profile, you should make sure that the configuration is correct.
    Click More actions -> Edit OR Show all settings.
  4. Make sure that Deployment Mode is set to Self-contained, and that Produce single file is enabled.
    publish-profile-settings
  5. You can now click Publish in the top-right to create the executable.

If you want to use this publish profile in a CI script or something, you can use the /p:PublishProfile option with dotnet publish like this: dotnet publish /p:PublishProfile="<PUBXML>"
where <PUBXML> is the path to your profile's pubxml file, which is usually located in <PROJECT>/Properties/PublishProfiles/FolderProfile.pubxml

radj307
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